Friday, November 25, 2016

Hello there,well another hectic week has passed. The most recent highlight was seeing my Mr8 perform in his first guitar concert. He only started learning this year and he did great - and so did the other kids! They were all so amazing, clever and brave to get up in front of an audience to show what they had learned.Despite a busy weekend I did manage to snatch a little time to make something for this week's Just Add Ink challenge. This week Jan wants you to Just Add Inspiration. She picked a great vibrant filled image to get you going. Use the image to inspire your project - it might be the colours, an object or patterns. Here it is.

And this is where I ended up.

You just knew it had to be another Christmas card didn't you!Those vibrant colours made me think the aurora's - aurora borealis and aurora australis I looked them up and the colours were perfect. So why not a Christmas night sky filled with one! To start I pulled out watercolour paper and got my reinkers a paintbrush and set to work. I toned down the colours with a wash of Night of Navy over the top, then added some water splotches and Wink of Stella for texture. Once that was dry I added fine splatters of white gouache over the top to complete the starry sky, leaving a little gap for my silver embossed Christmas star. The perfect companion to a background like this is a sweet silhouette die (my first pick from last years SU! Holiday catalogue now sadly retired). I cut that from shimmery white and also silver foil and offset the two slightly. A scattering of sequins finishes it all off.The rest of the team have lots of gorgeous inspiration for you so don't forget to drop past their blogs too.Thanks for visiting,Kim

Friday, November 18, 2016

Hello there,well we have a fun new challenge for you at Just Add Ink this week. For this new type of challenge we'll give you three options and you Just need to Choose Two and use those two in your project. So what can you choose this week? Well I set the challenge this week and your three options are dollies, die cuts and designer (patterned) paper.

Patterned paper is not my natural go to. So my starting point was dollies and die cuts. I wanted to use Merry Mice again (still loving these) and I was trying to think of different way to use dollies. When the combination of the singing mouse and the idea of using dollies as curtains popped into my head. A lot of this card was strongly influenced by a wonderful crafter Kelly Latevola. Kelly has posted two videos recently, one where she created a stage scene sketching her curtains in by hand with copics and another that is all about a spotlight. Do go watch these you'll learn so much about light and copic colouring!Here's how I combined all that information to come up with my mouse doing a stage concert. (Please forgive the light quality I took the photos early in the morning and have tried to adjust for that but its not perfect).

So first up my dollies. I smooched them into my Real Red ink pad, then heat set them. The lacy edges were just not right for the swags, so I just cut the lacy edging off and that was perfect. I did use just a little of the lacy bits at the bottom. (Just a note as dollies are so delicate I did reinforce them with punched circles of red card stock underneath). As the finishing touch to the swags I used my copic markers to add detail, that worked great and was really effective. So where are my die cuts - there are two obvious and two not so obvious. The banner and stitched edging around the inside of the window frame are the obvious ones. Not so obvious, well I used a large circle one as the mask for the spotlight and a die cut of the Sunburst thinlet as a mask for my spotlight rays. The finishing touches were some dazzling diamonds to the mouse hat and fine tip glue pen to add gloss to the book.Well that was a very wordy post today! It may have taken a while but I did have fun putting this card together. I hope you'll join us for this new challenge at Just Add Ink. Don't forget to check out the awesome projects from the rest of the DT too.Thanks for visiting,KimRecipe: All SU! unless otherwise notedStamps: Merry Mice, Stitched with CheerCardstock: Real Red, Kraft, Whisper WhiteInk: Real Red, Marina Mist, Daffodil Delight, Tuxedo Black (Memento), VersamarkAccessories: Sunburst thinlet, Stitched shapes framelits, Copic markers, Stitched rectangles (Simon Says Stamp), White embossing powder, Metallic Sequins, Fine tip glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Dimensionals

Friday, November 11, 2016

Hello there,well life has been busy busy but also lots of fun as I had the pleasure of attending Stampin Up's OnStage in Brisbane last week and catching up with lots of special friends. While I was straight back work as soon as I got home I did manage to snatch a little time for this week's new Just Add Ink challenge from Nikki. This week Nikki wants you to Just Add a Colour Combo. Here it is.

Here's what I came up with.

Now some of those special stamping friends of mine will recognise the design as a variation of the swap card I made for OnStage. You can see that just below. Ironically I think I like the new version better :o However, I have to admit replicating 20 of the original, especially when I had a helping hand (thanks Patrice :) was probably easier than replicating my new version.

As you can see there is lots of ink involved in the new version. First I brayered my background and once that was dry silver embossed snowflakes over. Next I watercoloured my mice, once they were dry I added some sparkle to the lead mouse's hat, and shine (using the fine tip glue pen) to the light globes and ornament.

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My name is Kim, I have been stamping and scrapbooking since 2006. I'm married to a great guy and have two lovely children, Miss 12 and Mr 9. We also share our house with two burmese cats. I joined Stampin' Up! as an Independent Demonstrator in May 2009.